[Marxism] Healthcare for Profit is Sicko By Bonnie Weinstein

[Bonnie Weinstein <giobon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Healthcare for Profit is Sicko
By Bonnie Weinstein
July/August 2007
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/julaug_07/julaug_07_11.html

Few stories exposed the sickness of medical care under capitalism than a
story entitled, ³Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts,² by Gardner
Harris, which appeared in the June 27, 2007 issue of the New York Times.
This could have been part of the script of Michael Moore¹s new documentary
film, ³Sicko.²

This article points out that not only do most doctors accept payments from
drug companies for prescribing medications, but, ³...a pattern has emerged:
Psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other
specialty.² And further, ³...the more psychiatrists have earned from drug
makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines
known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are
especially risky and mostly unapproved,² proving that in the U.S., the
Hippocratic Oath has been abandoned and the almighty dollar rules.

Michael Moore¹s ³Sicko² goes a long way toward exposing the fact that the
U.S. healthcare system or lack thereof, is failing the nation¹s sick because
it is profit driven.

In case after case, and with powerful emotion, Moore follows patients
battling the healthcare system?such as the experience of a man who
accidentally severed two of his fingertips but couldn¹t afford to pay for
the re-attachment of both, so he had to choose which one to re-attach.
Moore¹s ³Sicko² even showcases individuals who died because they couldn¹t
pay for their healthcare needs that had been denied them by their insurance
companies.

His movie contrasts healthcare systems in Canada, England, France and Cuba.
In one scene, Moore¹s cameras followed a man who, while visiting Canada, had
an accident that basically cut his hand in half. The man was taken to the
hospital by ambulance, where a team of doctors had already been lined up for
the 24-hour surgery that would be necessary to re-attach the hand. Each
surgeon would work for a few hours and be relieved by the next doctor in
line and so on. The operation was successful and the man went home and was
not charged a dime.

Moore even goes as far as saying that the profit should be taken out of
healthcare?and that¹s a very good thing.
What Moore puts in and what he leaves out

While Moore did a good job showing the high quality of the Cuban healthcare
system with its easy access to doctors and to medical procedures and most
medicines free of charge or, in the case of some medicines, a prescription
that would cost over one hundred dollars here, only costs a nickel in
Cuba?there are a few big flaws in ³Sicko.²

The most striking was the claim that those tortured and held illegally in
Guantanamo Bay are getting good medical care! This doesn¹t make sense in the
face of the suicides and attempted suicides, the force-feedings of hunger
strikers by shoving tubes down their throats, and tethering the men in
cages.

It was not good enough for Moore to show American officials sadistically
claiming that these prisoners had the best medical care. We know that
whatever medical care they get is designed to keep them alive so they can be
tortured again! Bush is proud of it and defends it. The congress has voted
to fund it. This part of the film did a disservice to the truth and Moore
certainly knows better.

And while giving glowing reports about the healthcare systems of Canada,
England, France, Moore fails to mention that?across the board?these
governments are cutting back on, and trying to undermine and privatize their
own healthcare systems.

He does point out that Cuba, though not a profit driven system, somehow is
able to provide free healthcare. In fact, even under the hardship of the
U.S. trade embargo, it¹s supplying not only free and comprehensive
healthcare, including dentistry, medicines and eye care for all Cubans, but
it is developing innovative cancer and other treatments and medical
techniques; supplying free healthcare in countries around the world; and
even training students free of charge to become doctors?even students from
the inner cities of the U.S. who can¹t afford to go to medical school
otherwise. Healthcare is considered a basic human right in Cuba. And while
their hospitals are not built of marble and glass with fine brass plaques,
the priority they place on human life over profit comes through clearly in
³Sicko.²
Money for war a key issue

Moore also fails to point out what U.S. public tax-payer funds do pay for
instead of things like healthcare: two big wars?Iraq and Afghanistan;
700-plus bases around the world; Israel¹s military; Colombia¹s military?the
entire huge U.S. war industry?including its nuclear weapons!

Even England, France and Canada?while they are also imperialist oppressor
countries?don¹t spend a fraction of what the U.S. spends on its worldwide
military industrial complex. Certainly the U.S. is the top-ranking military
force in the world today. And American workers and workers around the world
under American corporate control and under American bombs and in front of
American tanks are paying for it.

Our children are paying for it now in decreased wages and a shorter life
span! And they are paying for it with their lives in an unjust and brutal
war that is trading their blood for oil to increase profits for the few.
Money for police and jails not healthcare

Connected to this is the U.S. prison industrial complex?another profit
driven industry. The U.S. has the highest percentage of its population in
jail than any other country in the world?most for drug related charges?and
at great expense to taxpayers. In fact, according to a May 21, 2007 article
in the San Francisco Chronicle, entitled, ³Prisons¹ budget to trump
colleges,² by James Sterngold,

³As the costs for fixing the state¹s troubled corrections system rocket
higher, California is headed for a dubious milestone?for the first time the
state will spend more on incarcerating inmates than on educating students in
its public universities.

³Based on current spending trends, California¹s prison budget will overtake
spending on the state¹s universities in five years. No other big state in
the country spends close to as much on its prisons compared with
universities.²

So instead of spending money on education, jobs, housing and, especially,
comprehensive drug treatment and rehabilitation programs?including
education?they pour it instead into war, police occupation of the community,
arrest, incarceration and economic induction into military service of the
victims of poverty and racism.
Instead of solving drug problems, capitalism promotes them

In addition to the introduction of crack cocaine into our inner cities by
the CIA, as exposed by reporter Gary Webb. many of those incarcerated are in
trouble because they became addicted to one of the drugs that their doctors
were paid to push on them, like the drug, OxyContin.

As a concrete example, according to a May 10, 2007 New York Times article
entitled, ³In Guilty Plea, OxyContin Maker to Pay $600 Million,² by Barry
Meier, ³The company that makes the narcotic painkiller OxyContin and three
current and former executives pleaded guilty today in federal court here to
criminal charges that they misled regulators, doctors and patients about the
drug¹s risk of addiction and its potential to be abused.²

Neither the makers of OxyContin nor the doctors, who over-prescribed it,
will ever have to spend even a second in jail. And, in spite of the billions
of dollars in profits the drug companies and their drug-pushing doctors have
already earned due to increased sales to those they have addicted?their only
punishment is that they must pay $600 million in fines?money that will never
get to the victims of those incarcerated because of those drugs; or who have
died from them; or to their families who have been so deeply impacted in a
myriad of ways.
Money for human needs not war

While the mega-drug companies, HMOs and insurance companies rake in billions
of dollars in profits off the sale of questionable drugs, by denying
healthcare treatments to sick people, and by turning doctors into
drug-pushers?the sick and the poor get the worst of all worlds.

They get bad drugs; get denied services; and they and their children are
incarcerated even for the use of marijuana?a drug that has killed no
one?while the conscious pushers of a deadly drug like OxyContin go free.

And, if that is not bad enough, working people have to pay for the
insufficient care they do get?not only with the money taken out of their
paycheck?not only with the increasing cost of their co-payments, and not
only by the reduction of covered benefits (much of that hidden until they
need it)?but sometimes at the cost of their lives.
Socialized medicine is a good thing

One of the strongest points in Michael Moore¹s ³Sicko,² comes when he points
out that, indeed, we have many social welfare programs. Even here in the
U.S., in the commanding heights of the capitalist world, we have socialized
fire service, schools, police, civil servants of all kinds. The military and
space programs are fully funded.

And while many of our most important services for the poor are being cut
back, ³society² is able to support some of these basic services. The
conclusion to be drawn would be to support the funding of medical care
instead of war. This point should have been made resoundingly clear in the
film. It was not. (Moore has since made the point quite effectively on TV
interviews and I give him credit for that.)

In spite of its weaknesses, Moore¹s ³Sicko² made it reasonable to think that
socialized medicine?free, universal medical care for all?should be a part of
these basic social services.
The mayhem of the profit motive

It is the height of hypocrisy that doctors-turned-drug pushers, and the drug
manufacturers are being rewarded by the corporate profit system, while
masses of drug-dependent people?instead of getting the healthcare and drug
rehabilitation they need?are incarcerated at great expense to taxpayers and,
in fact, denied healthcare altogether in some cases.

This is concrete evidence of the utter failure and total lack of rationality
of the American capitalist system of healthcare ruled by the profit motive.

The profit motive permeates all areas of social concern from the lack of
healthcare, to crumbling roads and schools, to the inability to rebuild New
Orleans, just to name a few of the things the wealthiest nation in the world
can¹t seem to do.

The hypocrisy of a government spending billions of dollars on war,
occupation and annihilation while denying healthcare to a dying child is the
legacy of capitalism.

It is the legacy of a dying and rotting system spinning out of control in
the hands of a tiny minority of desperados who will risk everything?except
of course, themselves and their money?to maintain their world dominance.
They will sacrifice any and all?social services and people?as needed?as war
costs steadily increase.

At the helm of the greatest war machine on the planet are the corporate
rulers who are at war against all working people the world over. And this is
expensive. And they have no intention of paying for it themselves. That
would defeat the purpose of their wars, which is to increase their profits
for their own greedy enjoyment of obscene wealth, privilege and the power to
maintain it.
What do we do about it?

Michael Moore¹s, ³Sicko² will resonate with millions of people. It has
already opened up a discussion of possible solutions to the healthcare
crisis we are currently facing in this country. Already, reforms are on the
drawing boards in State and Federal governing bodies.

The most popular form are reactionary bills like the Massachusetts
healthcare bill put forward by Republican Governor Mitt Romney which would
require all uninsured adults in the state to purchase some kind of insurance
policy or face a fine just like with auto insurance. Under this bill, those
without insurance would apply to an insurance board, run by insurance
companies, of course (much like how you buy auto insurance) and be offered
coverage according to how much you can pay, while they decide exactly what
medical services will or will not be covered.

The consumer¹s choices would be expanded to include a range of new and
inexpensive policies ranging from almost free to about $250 per month?from
private insurers subsidized by the state. But this does not do away with
private insurers. Instead, it helps them to increase their sales and profits
by forcing everyone to purchase a plan from them, or face the penalties.

All the major Democratic and Republican candidates support some form of this
bill. They only differ on how poor people will have to be to qualify for a
subsidy; and exactly what the minimum coverage of the cheapest medical
insurance will be.

None of the candidates supports a single-payer system?let alone free,
universal and comprehensive healthcare for all as a basic human right?as it
should be.
Single-payer healthcare

In California we have SB 840, the California Health Insurance Reliability
Act, which, on the surface, seems pretty good. At least it gradually does
away with the insurance companies, turning California healthcare into a
³single payer² system. According to the bill summary,

³All federal, state and county monies currently spent on health care will be
reallocated to the state Health Care Fund. This will supply about one-third
of the needed funding. Federal waivers are required for allocation of
federal dollars to the state Health Care Fund. The remaining funding will
come from state health taxes that will replace health insurance premiums now
paid to insurance companies and co-pays and deductibles now paid to
providers. Premiums will be affordable for every Californian and every
business because what families pay is in proportion to their income and what
employers pay is in proportion to wages. Single-payer efficiencies control
costs. Most businesses and families will save money...Imposes a waiting
period for new residents, if a large number of people are entering the state
for the purpose of obtaining health care; establishes consumer co-payments
and/or deductibles, if necessary, only after the first two years, and
limited to $250 per person or $500 per family; and establishes standards for
waiver of co-payments for those with low income...when cost control measures
are insufficient: it may ask the Legislature for an increase in health care
taxes.²

Already, on the surface, this is unfair because taxes are not progressive.
Employer¹s profits far outweigh their labor costs! Workers pay a much higher
proportion of their income in taxes than do the wealthy. The bosses designed
this system so they can enjoy these huge tax breaks at the expense of
working people.

The problem with single-payer healthcare is that eventually it will mean
that everyone, indeed, will be forced to pay or not receive care?or perhaps
even get fined for getting caught sick without healthcare.
Tax the rich not the poor. Money for human needs not war.

The only way a single-payer plan would be fair to working people is if it is
combined with a progressive income tax, where the rich pay more according to
a sliding scale (the richer you are the higher percentage of taxes you pay)
and the poor pay no taxes at all and healthcare and all social services are
provided free to all.

To put teeth into this, working people must be able to democratically decide
where our tax money will be spent?whether we should spend billions of
dollars on war?or on the things we want and need.
The profit system is making us ?sicko¹

None of these things can be accomplished in a society that puts the
unrestricted accumulation of private profit for the rich above the interests
of everyone else. Such a society is doomed to be thrust back into the dark
ages. And, unfortunately, this is the very circumstance being played out in
the world right now. Already Iraq and Afghanistan have been plunged into
poverty, destruction and despair by imperialism¹s war led by the U.S.
bosses?the very same bosses ripping the guts out of all the basic social
services here.

The only solution to this downward spiral is for working people here?and in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and all over the world?to unite and take
matters into our own hands and depose and disarm the war profiteers and end
the inhuman profit driven system of capitalism?with its ever-expanding wars
and bigger prisons.
Human decency falters under the rule of capital

Films like ³Sicko² serve to awaken the common thread of humanity within all
of us, and to that we owe Michael Moore a great debt of gratitude. Sometimes
the most obvious things get lost in the quagmire of capitalist media spin
that constantly seeks to turn the victim into the criminal.

But the sight of a man who must choose which of his fingertips to save
becomes like a blow-to-the-head-wake-up-call when you see the results as he
tries to adjust his guitar playing to his new, unimproved circumstance a
year or so later. That is the art of Michael Moore¹s ³Sicko.²

Capitalism and its profit motive don¹t work for the overwhelming majority of
humans on this planet. And, in fact, it is as a giant boulder tied in a knot
around a drowning child. ³Sicko² is a close-up look at that giant boulder
and the hands that tied the knot.

It is up to us to put an end to this madness and create a society that puts
human needs and the needs of the planet above private property and personal
gain at the expense of the majority.

This can only be achieved through our unity and solidarity for an end to
capitalism and the beginning of a socialist future.


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